From April to October 2024, the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, USA, presented a special outdoor exhibition titled "The Story of Ramie : From Seed to Finished Garment ," showcasing detailed ink paintings illustrating each step in the ramie production process, from cultivation to dyeing and finishing. This exhibit features a remarkable album of 19th-century Chinese watercolor paintings from our museum collection that trace the path of natural ramie fibers from cultivation to couture.
In today's journey, we'll explore what ramie is and how it's created. But it doesn't stop there; this story opens up a bigger question: why can natural fibers like ramie help us envision – and build – a more sustainable future for fashion?
We may have worn clothing made from ramie before, we just never named it.
Imagine yourself standing in the middle of a green field. The scent of damp earth fills the air. Listen carefully, and you can hear birds calling to each other, crickets chirping in the grass. It is from this very place that Ramie's story begins.
The Story of Ramie exhibition Funded by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.
Ramie is a natural fabric derived from plants belonging to the nettle family, and it has a history of use spanning thousands of years. Ramie garments have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs, and it was once an important commodity traded along the Silk Road.
Ramie is also known by many other names such as grass linen , grass cloth , or China linen . This material can be as smooth and luxurious as silk, as light as delicate linen, and has superior tensile strength compared to cotton, making it one of the most valuable natural fabrics in the world of traditional textiles.
But where did Ramie come from?
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Chinese ramie was exported worldwide, accompanied by watercolor paintings detailing the production process. These paintings were created between 1830 and 1860, during the late Qing dynasty, by a Cantonese artist named Suqua. His studio was located in what is now Guangxi, China.
These watercolor paintings are often compiled into commemorative albums, aiming to present the entire ramie-making process step-by-step in a clear and systematic manner. Such albums are designed to attract international buyers, helping them understand and appreciate ramie as a high-quality, technically sophisticated fabric created by master artisans.
Sow seeds
So let's start from the smallest beginning: a ramie seed . In the first image, a young woman is hand-caring for tender, vibrant green ramie seedlings. Ramie seeds are sown in raised, well-drained soil. Unlike other fiber crops such as flax, which are sown densely so that the slender stems lean against each other, ramie plants are planted sparsely, creating space for each plant to grow tall, straight, and healthy.
Prune branches. Nurture the trunk.
In the next painting, a woman wearing a straw hat and raincoat bends down to observe a young ramie plant. She is pruning the lower branches at the base of the stem, helping the plant concentrate its energy to grow taller. The taller the plant, the longer the fibers – that is the fundamental principle of ramie.
Harvest
In the third image, the mature ramie stalks are finally being harvested. At the time these pictures were drawn, ramie was typically grown and harvested about twice a year: one sown in spring, harvested in July; the second sown in summer, harvested in October. Once the ramie had been harvested, the most important work began: turning the plant into fiber.
Separating fibers
The next scene shows a well-dressed woman carefully separating the ramie stalk into two parts: the hard woody core and the flexible fiber surrounding it. Women typically handle the sorting of coarse and fine fibers on the spot.
Clean. Spin.
Wash. Soften.
Bleaching. Dyeing.
Water is a crucial element throughout the entire ramie process: it helps the seeds germinate, washes away impurities, and softens the fibers.
Rinse – fix the fibers
The next painting shows a woman standing by a stream, using a wooden paddle to remove excess water from bundles of bleached ramie. This final rinse with cold water helps to solidify the bleaching process and makes the yarn stronger and more durable.
Yarn coil – ready for weaving
Fine ramie yarn, after being bleached and spun, is wound onto large spools for the weavers. In the last image of the middle row, we see a woman winding the yarn onto a bobbin. Now, the ramie yarn is ready to be made into fabric.
Textile weaving
In the bottom left corner, ramie threads are tightly wound around wooden spindles. Within a wooden loom, secured by heavy stones, the weaver uses the frame to transform the threads into fabric. The loom combines warp and weft threads. These two systems of threads intertwine to create the cloth.
Traditional loom
In the next image, we see a woman in a vibrant pink dress working on a large loom. In her left hand is a small black tool, called a shuttle , used to move the weft thread back and forth between the warp threads. This is a backstrap treadle loom , a 19th-century version of a type of loom developed in China during the Han Dynasty, over 2,000 years ago. The "backstrap" refers to the belt worn by the weaver to maintain tension in the warp threads. The "treadle" is a foot pedal that adjusts the tension and allows the shuttle to move smoothly. And here, the ramie thread finally becomes ramie fabric .
Finished – coloring
In the image on the right, a woman proudly spreads out a finished strip of ramie fabric. Ramie can be dyed, cut, and sewn into clothing. Ramie is light, breathable, and absorbent, making it ideal for summer. In the next two images, we see a riverside scene: a man dyeing ramie, rinsing it in flowing water, and drying it. The vibrant blue color suggests the fabric may have been dyed with indigo —a natural dye derived from the leaves of the Indigofera plant, used in East and Southeast Asia for over a thousand years. If you've ever worn blue jeans, you've already worn some form of indigo.
From seeds to clothing
Finally, we see a ramie merchant displaying his products. Ramie is still produced today as a natural, biodegradable fiber, an alternative to synthetic fibers like polyester or nylon. Ramie is mildew-resistant and can withstand multiple washes. When woven with other natural fibers such as wool or cotton, ramie also helps reduce wrinkles.
Today, we don't always think about the long journey a piece of clothing takes—from seed to store, from factory to wardrobe. These images may be from the 19th century, but the process of making clothes today is just as complex.
Ramie's story hopefully encourages us to pay more attention to fibers, fabrics, and dyes. Take a look at your clothing labels—who knows, they might take you on a trip around the world.
These works are more than just beautiful images. They reflect the connection between art, textile craftsmanship, chemistry, and technology, and show how traditional techniques have shaped and connected the world through materials.
When a piece of material is important enough to be told as a story.
The exhibition "The Story of Ramie: From Seed to Finished Garment" is not a fashion show. It has no runway, no mannequins, no trends. What is on display is the process, step by step, from seed, stem, yarn, loom, to the finished fabric.
Ramie, in itself, is a statement.
In a world where fashion often begins with the final image—the dress, the model, the moment—this exhibition chooses to go against the grain: starting from labor , from materials , from time .
And that's where ramie belongs.
Sunqua's 19th-century illustrations show something that modern fashion often forgets: Ramie never needed to be "reinvented." It was already complete from a very early stage—biologically, technically, and functionally.
People in the past didn't grow ramie because it was beautiful.
They cultivate it because: it tolerates hot, humid climates; its fibers are durable and cool; and, more importantly: it works perfectly with human living conditions. Ramie is the material solution .
Ramie carries within it the memories of many civilizations, not nostalgic memories, but functional memories. These are the memories of how humans cooled their bodies before air conditioning; of how to create durability without synthetic fibers; of how to dress to live, not to show off.
The Science History Institute's exhibition reminds us of a fundamental truth: fashion doesn't begin with creativity, but with understanding. Understanding where materials come from, why they exist, and what conditions they were created to serve.
Without this understanding, all pronouncements about sustainability become fragile.
Those paintings continue to live on in today's material choices: which fibers to select, how to process them, and how to design them to respect the natural structure of the fabric.
The exhibition "The Story of Ramie" doesn't tell a story from the distant past; it simply reiterates a very relevant point: Fashion only truly progresses when it remembers where it began.
And with ramie, that starting point is always clear: from the earth, from the tree trunk, from human hands - and only then does the fabric touch the skin.
Source: https://www.sciencehistory.org/
0 comments